From The Ashes Special Ending
by Cheryl Roberts
Summary: If you wanted the story to end a little differently, here it is. A one shot.


Epilog

"Must you go, Billy?" Trini queried

"Yes.  I've been away far longer than I had anticipated," was her long-time friend's response.

Tommy's apartment was filled to bursting with his friends.  The occasion was a going away party for Billy who was returning to Eltar after spending two months on Earth.  Tommy had worked hard to get all their old friends together for the festivities; the only one who couldn't make it was Justin, but then Billy had never really known him.

The party had also served another purpose –that of a memorial to Kimberly.  Tommy had shared his Threan family with all of the old gang, and they, in turn, had spent much of the evening swapping their favorite memories of the perky gymnast.

Tommy smiled as he threaded his way through the maze of bodies to the kitchen to get more drinks, letting the various conversations swirl around him.

"You –a politician?  Who'd a thunk it," Rocky snickered around a mouth full of chips and salsa.

"It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it," Aisha giggled.

"I always thought Trini was the diplomat on the team," Zack added.

"Hey, maybe she should go back with you, Billy," Rocky suggested, eyes alight with sudden inspiration –and mischief.

Both Trini and Billy blushed as they glanced awkwardly at each other.

In another area of the living room....

"When did the two of you start dating?" Tanya asked of Kat and Jason.

"Not long after I returned to the States," the willowy blonde answered.

"What about you and Tanya, Adam?  Have you guys set a date yet?" Jason wondered.

Adam replied, "No, we're waiting until after college...."

Tommy had to admit it felt good to have all his friends here.  And even though Kim wasn't there physically, he knew she was there in spirit, and somehow his heart didn't hurt so much.

_"Enjoying the party, Beautiful?"_

He knew he wouldn't receive an answer, but it made him feel good to talk to her in his mind and heart.  Somehow, he knew she was getting the message.

_"So, what do you think?  If Trini goes with Billy to Eltar, will he finally tell her that he likes her?  What about Jason and Kat as a couple?  I think they look great together."_

At first, he'd worried that his need to converse with Kim was a sign he was going nuts, but Billy had assured him that many people used such conversations as a coping mechanism and that it was perfectly all right –provided he didn't go to extremes and shut out the flesh and blood people around him.

"Hey Tommy, you're phone's ringing," Rocky hollered, and belated Tommy became aware of a beeping sound.

"That's not the phone; that's someone's pager," Aisha corrected.

"Actually, it sounds like one of our old communicators," Jason piped up.

"Where's it coming from?" Kat wondered.

"Over by the bookshelf," Zack noted.

"It's coming from this black box," Trini said, picking up Tommy's most treasured possession.

Tommy came forward to collect Kim's box.  Everyone else fell silent as he opened it and extracted his old communicator.  It was, indeed, chiming.

"Who could it be?" Tanya asked.

"Should I answer?" Tommy asked, directing his query to Billy.

"Go ahead."

"Tommy here," he said cautiously.

_"It is Jamie,"_ came the familiar voice.

Tommy's face lit up with a brilliant smile –one his friends returned, knowing of his feelings for his family.

_"I will have to commend Zol; she finally got it right,"_ Jamie continued.  _"She has been trying to adapt the designs for your communicator so that its signal would pierce the dimensional barrier."_

"Something I had never perfected," Billy murmured.

"It sure would have come in handy when we were still Rangers," Jason commented.

_"You have company?  Is this a bad time?"_

"Not at all.  My friends –your aunts and uncles– are here."

_"Ah, so much the better.  Would you care for a couple more visitors?"_

"That'd be awesome."

_"Set your communicator down and step back.  Zol will lock on to its coordinates."_

The ten friends stepped well away from the communicator which Tommy set on the rug in the middle of his sparsely furnished living room.

Moments later came the familiar hum of a teleporter, and five shafts of light sparkled like champagne in mid-air.  Five tall, slender figures took shape in the brilliance; however, the five visitors were actually six, as one was cradled in the arms of one of the lissome females.

"Hello, Grandfather," Twyn greeted him as she stepped forward and placed a kiss on Tommy's cheek.  "I thought you might like to meet the newest addition to the family."

"I take it Jax was successful," Tommy said and Twyn blushed.  He held out his arms to accept the tiny bundle.  Wing-like ears peeped out from under mahogany curls, and when the baby opened his eyes, they proved to be pools of dark brown fringed with lush lashes –the trademark of all the Olivers.

Behind Tommy, he heard the oohs and aahs of his friends.

"So, little fella, you must be Jax's brother," Tommy murmured, beaming with pride.  "What's your name?"

"Kym," Twyn announced, and Tommy felt a lump in his throat.

"Oh, Tommy, can we hold him?" Kat all but begged.  Twyn nodded her assent, and Tommy handed his great-grandson to his adoring aunts.

"We have a few more introductions to make," Jamie spoke up.  His hand rested on the shoulder of a willowy elf-maid with the Oliver eyes and wavy, reddish-brown hair.  "This is Dru, my and Lris' daughter."

"And this is Brin, Prist and my daughter," Jax said, his arm draped around the shoulders of a twenty-something young lady with silky blue-black hair that hung in a straight cascade which fell nearly to the floor.  Save for her eyes, she heavily favored her mother in appearance.

"Be still my heart," Rocky gasped, one hand clutching at his chest.

"You never told us you had such good looking grandkids," Zack added.

Both girls were at least a head taller than either of the men who gazed up at them adoringly.

"Hopeless," Aisha snorted, rolling her eyes at them before returning her attention to the precious bundle who was presently cooing in Tanya's arms.

"It is nice to make the acquaintance of my extended family after so long," Jamie said, which prompted Tommy to make introductions.

"Not that I mind –you guys are welcome any time– but why the family reunion now?" Tommy asked.

"It's been –what?-- twenty years since you last saw Tommy," Billy remarked.

"It has taken that long to prepare this for you," Jax said.  He directed his next words into his communicator, "Teleport the pod now."

The adult Threans stepped away from Tommy's communicator, and a new shape took form: an obsidian capsule, smooth, shiny and virtually seamless.

"A life support pod?" Tommy queried.  At his words, Billy and Jason drew closer.  The others, curious, closed ranks behind them.

Jax touched a control, and the lid became transparent, revealing the occupant.

"Kimberly?"

Tommy stepped forward like a sleepwalker, reaching out a hand to touch the cool surface.  The woman within was not the aged warrior that his lifebond had become but the young girl who had kissed him good-bye at the airport that Christmas a lifetime ago.

"I–I don't understand," he stammered.  "How...?  Why...?"  

Why this?  Why now when he was just getting a handle on his grief?  When he was just beginning to feel like he could let go and move on?

"The body is a clone," Jamie began explaining.  "Marg found tissue samples taken from Mother before D'Ez changed her.  She was still fully human then, fresh from Earth."

"I thought that cloned bodies were unstable," Billy commented.

"They are, if they are aged at an accelerated rate," Jax confirmed.  "This one was allowed to reach maturity at a normal rate –twenty years, in fact."

"Also, she was grown in an Earth-like atmosphere, never exposed to Threan conditions," Jamie continued.

"That tells us how, but not why," Jason pointed out, acutely aware of Tommy's pain.

"The why is because Grandmother requested this of us," Twyn interjected.

_"WHAT?"_

"After her time spent with you, she knew she could not simply return to the Morphin' Grid," Twyn elaborated.  "She asked us to try and find a way to return her to you."

"So... is Kim's spirit in that body?" Trini inquired.

"Not yet, but she is _here_," Twyn confessed with a smile and tapped her forehead.

"Really?" Tommy asked eagerly, scarcely able to believe it.  In response, Twyn placed her hand on his forehead.

_"Really, Handsome,"_ replied the achingly familiar voice.

_"Kim!"_ Tommy exclaimed both mentally and verbally.

_"I've missed you,"_ she continued in a choked tone.

_"But why...?  I thought you said....  You were the one who insisted that you were dead –that I should let you go,"_ Tommy reminded her.

_"I know,"_ Kim sighed.  _"I changed my mind.  It turns out, **I** couldn't let **you** go.  If Norzod could take up residence in my clone, why can't I?"_

_"You don't know if this will work, do you?" _Tommy challenged.

_"No, I don't, but if it doesn't work, we're no worse off than we were before.  It's a risk I'm willing to take."_

_"Let's try it,"_ he agreed.  To his anxiously waiting family, he asked, "What do we need to do?"

"First, we have to revive the clone," Jax said.  "Once we are certain the body has survived, Mother and I will begin the reintegration process."

"Is there anything we can do?" Tommy wondered.

"Actually, there is.  A connection to the Morphin' Grid will be critical, and since the clone does not possess one of her own, we will use yours to create one for her," Jamie elaborated.

"You can do that?" Trini asked, frowning.

"Kimberly's body was suffuse with the energy from the Morphin' Grid when she was taken to Threa," Billy pointed out.  "The Power had already altered her genetic structure."  To Jamie, he said, "I think I have something in my lab at home that will help."

With that, he teleported out.

"I didn't know we could still do that," Rocky murmured.

"Tommy, I know how badly you want this," Adam began, "but have you stopped to think if you really should?"

"What do you mean?"

"Kim's been dead for over two years.  We buried her.  Her friends and family have mourned her," Tanya said.

"Everyone believes her dead; how can you just have her reappear and say, 'here I am, alive and well.'" Kat added.

"If you were to exhume the body in that coffin, all you would find are ashes," Jamie informed them.

"An ordinary body, while decomposed, would have left bones behind," Trini noted.

"Billy's a computer whiz; he could probably take care of fixing things with her records and stuff," Zack posited.

"As for a cover story, we could say that Lord Zedd had captured Kim and sent a clone back in her place.  The Rangers just rescued her from suspended animation or something like that," Jason offered.

"First we have to see if this will actually work," Tommy cautioned.

"It has to!" Rocky insisted.

Jax had begun the revival process while they were discussing the possible problems, and Billy returned, carrying an ornately carved chest.

"What's that, Billy?" Aisha questioned.

The one-time Blue Ranger flipped open the lid to reveal a set of five Power Coins.

"Where did you get those?" Jason wondered, his heart skipping a beat as he eyed the Tyrannosaurus Coin.

"We didn't know it, but when Zordon upgraded our powers from Dino to Thunder, he gave us new Power Coins.  These are the originals," Billy related.  "I always meant to distribute these, but it never seemed the appropriate time."

"We understand, Billy," Tanya assured him.

"I thought the Pterodactyl Coin might help Kim now," he concluded.

"Jax, what is the clone's status?" Jamie requested.

"Cardiac functions –normal.  Respiratory functions –normal.  Baseline brain activity... she's alive and stable," came the report.

Jamie took the proffered Power Coin from Billy and placed it on the clone's chest.

_"Ready, Beautiful?"_

_"As I'll ever be.  I want to come home, Tommy."_

_"You're almost there."_

"Kim's set," Tommy announced.

"Very well," Jamie murmured, and the Threans set to work.  Dru, Brin and Jamie established physical contact with three Rangers each, hands and heads touching the human's foreheads, drawing them into a link.  Jax positioned himself so that he could link father, daughter and granddaughter with Tommy.  In the meantime, Twyn had both hands on the clone's head, concentrating on letting Kimberly's consciousness flow from her into its new host.

Tommy reached out a hand to Twyn to complete the circuit, and he felt the Power flood his senses as it had once upon a time when he had still been a Ranger.  Red, White and Green energy danced about and through him, but he also touched the strands of Yellow, Blue, Black and Pink that coruscated through the link, pouring from his friends into him and thence into Twyn's --and ultimately Kimberly's-- body.

Time ceased to have any meaning.  There was just the vastness of the Morphin' Grid; it reminded Tommy of what it had been like to touch the universe through the Imbera powers.

Then, slowly, they began to recede from the Power, the chain binding them together vanishing one link at a time.

"Whoa!" Zack moaned and flopped down onto the couch.

"You said it," Rocky agreed, joining him, but neither was too wasted to happily make room for Dru, who joined them.

Around the room, the others were finding seats after their intense experience.

"Did it work?" Tommy asked Twyn eagerly.  She sagged weakly against the life pod, and he was quick to help her out.

"Twyn?" Jamie asked solicitously even as Jax made his way to the life pod.

"Jax?" Tommy inquired again hopefully.

His great-grandson could not hide his smile.  "See for yourself."

Tommy peered into the oblong capsule, his throat tight.  There was color in the clone's cheeks now, and her chest rose and fell steadily.  She looked for all the world as if she was asleep.  Hand shaking, he reached down to brush aside a stray strand of hair.

"Hey, Beautiful, it's time to wake up," he murmured, all but holding his breath.

The eyelids twitched then slowly fluttered open.  Doe brown eyes focused on his face, and a smile tugged at the pink lips.

"I don't believe it," The voice was scarcely more than a hoarse whisper, but it was the most beautiful sound Tommy had ever heard.  "Is it really you?"

"In the flesh," he replied, and as he scooped her into a joyous hug, their friends burst out in happy cheers.

"It worked; it really worked!" Kim murmured in awe.

"For all you have done for us, you deserved this second chance," Jamie murmured.

Tommy couldn't speak, but happy tears glimmered in his eyes as he pulled his son into a heart-felt hug.

"How can we ever thank you?" Kim asked, feeling as weak as a kitten.  She suspected she had a long way to go before she was fully functional again.

"Do not wait too long to make me a big brother," Jamie said with a teasing grin.  "I am not getting any younger."

"We'll do our best," Tommy laughed and Kim blushed.

"We do not know how long this body will last," Jax cautioned, hating to dampen everyone's spirits.  "Marg could give us no guarantees."

"There are no guarantees in life anyway," Kim said sagely.

"Trust us, we'll make the most of every minute we have," Tommy assured their family.  "Beginning now..."

So saying, he crushed Kim to him and claimed her mouth in a fiery kiss.

Smiling with approval, Jamie turned to Billy and Jason.  "Be sure to notify us when they have their bonding ceremony."


End file.
